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Unformatted text preview: disk (which may be a hard disk, floppy disk, or optical disk) is to be used
with a system, it must be formatted properly according to the requirements of the
associated operating system. The disk formatting utility allows a user to perform
this task with great ease.
Disk Compaction Utility
This utility is useful for those systems that use the method of contiguous allocation
of disk blocks to files. We saw that in this method, almost 30% of the disk space
may remain unused due to external fragmentation problem after the system has
been in continuous use for some time. Disk compaction utility allows a user to
perform disk compaction, which moves files to bring all free blocks together. Disk
compaction is a time consuming operation and may take several hours. Hence it is
usually performed at night when the system is otherwise idle.
Data Compression Utility
This utility uses a compression algorithm to transform files into a fraction of their
normal size so that they occupy less storage space on disk or can be transferred
across a network in less time. The utility has an associated decompression
algorithm that is used to bring back a compressed file into its normal form and size
when accessed by a user. Several modem manufacturers build data-compression
techniques into their modems to reduce data-transfer times. Similarly, several disk
drives have data-compression techniques built into them to allow more files to be
stored in the available disk space. The compression and decompression of data
happens automatically that is transparent to the users. The time required to
compress and decompress the data is so small that it is not noticeable. Often the
amount of space saved by using this technique is significant - it can effectively
double the capacity of a disk.
Data Backup Utility
Data stored in a computer system can be damaged or lost in several ways such as a
disk crash, a virus, a hardware malfunction, or simply an accidental erasure by its owner. So it is always suggested to keep backup of important dat...
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